If you throw all the products we buy and the services we use in one basket, then add up the price tag, that's the Gross Domestic Product, which is the primary metric economists use to assess the economic health of a country or region.

The easy part of calculating GDP is the calculation itself: C+I+G+(X-M)=GDP. Got it? No? Well, add Consumption, Investment by companies, Government purchases, and then take the product of eXports (calling it 'E' would lack sexiness) minus iMports ('I' was taken). Viola! GDP.

Still don't get it? Well, knowing the components helps. Consumption is the biggest component, and it's a tally of the cost of all the goods and services we buy. Investment is what companies spend on the real assets they own, plus the value of the inventory that we haven't gobbled up through consumption. Government purchases are what the Feds pay money for (whether it be highways or fighter jets, though big social programs, like welfare, aren't counted). And then we calculate the difference between the goods and services we¿re sending to other countries and the stuff we're bringing in.

Good. That explains it, except there's a catch. Inflation has a habit of distorting the numbers, so economists talk about either Nominal GDP or Real GDP. In fact, Real GDP isn't necessarily "real" for most folks, since it takes any inflation out. Nominal GDP includes the effects of inflation. (There's something called the implicit price deflator which is a calculation using the two, but we'll spare you the details.)

So, now that we know GDP, why do we want to? Well, it's good to compare different markets. And watching the trend shows whether a given economy is growing (good), stagnating (not so good), or shrinking (very not so good). When GDP goes down two quarters in a row, we're officially in a recession.

For the record, GDP is released at the end of each month, with most reporting ¿preliminary¿ data for the previous month. But you won't get final GDP numbers for the fourth quarter of a year until the very end of the first quarter of the next year. After all, it's not an easy number to calculate.

Home / Markets / Industries / Media

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Dow Jones Insight Offers New Enhancements for Better Media Measurement and Reporting

Email this Story | Respond to Editor | Print

Comtex

NEW YORK, Aug 05, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ ----Dow Jones & Company, (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NWS, NWSLV), today announced a number of significant enhancements to Dow Jones Insight, a solution that combines the best technology, traditional and social media content, tools and services to provide public relations and corporate communications professionals with access to the latest media coverage and high-quality media measurement for their organization. The new enhancements include access to key performance indicators (KPIs), alerts and newsletters and allow executives to act faster and more decisively with their communications strategies, ultimately saving time and increasing productivity.

With the key performance indicators and alerts, customers are able to proactively monitor and measure the impact of their media coverage on their KPIs. These metrics allow organizations to compare the success of their campaigns over time and provide users with automatic notification of changes in the coverage so they can act accordingly.

The newsletter feature allows users to create polished communications to share campaign results or distribute top media coverage thereby demonstrating the value of campaigns and keeping everyone informed of business-critical coverage. Among the various options offered with the newsletter feature is the ability to easily create news summaries and campaign reports with links to news stories, blog posts or Web links, and charts.

"These new enhancements were developed in response to our customer needs," said Alan Scott, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group. "Dow Jones Insight allows organizations to identify and respond to any opportunities and threats in time to influence the outcome. As a result, we help organizations optimize their communications programs and drive winning campaign strategies."

Additional new functionality offered by Dow Jones Insight includes journalist charts, which help organizations identify influential journalists or bloggers who are covering their company and competitors, saving them time when creating media pitch lists. Users can also measure the success of their interactions with journalists so they can more effectively develop relationships and optimize media coverage.

Dow Jones Insight powers the intelligent enterprise with a unique combination of content, technology and people to provide services that help organizations develop communications strategies and metrics that demonstrate the value of public relations. Because every organization has its own media focus and metrics, each engagement is fully customized by Dow Jones Insight Media Lab consultants and analysts to ensure accurate, reliable results. The high-quality media measurement and workflow tools provide customers with the information they need to optimize programs and keep everyone in the enterprise informed about the latest media coverage and campaign results.

For more information about Dow Jones Factiva products including Dow Jones Insight, visit www.factiva.com. For more information about the Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group, visit www.solutions.dowjones.com.

ABOUT DOW JONES

Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a News Corporation company (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NWS, NWSLV; www.newscorp.com). Dow Jones is a leading provider of global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Its Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jones Financial Information Services. Its Local Media Group operates community-based information franchises. Dow Jones owns 50% of SmartMoney and 33% of STOXX Ltd. and provides news content to radio stations in the U.S.

SOURCE Dow Jones & Company

http://www.factiva.com

Copyright (C) 2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved
   ********************************************************************** As of Friday, 08-01-2008 23:59, the latest Comtex SmarTrend�
   Alert, an automated pattern recognition system, indicated an UPTREND on 04-19-2007 for DJ @ $36.35. As of Friday, 08-01-2008
   23:59, the latest Comtex SmarTrend Alert, an automated pattern recognition system, indicated a DOWNTREND on 07-01-2008 for
   NWS @ $15.25. For more information on SmarTrend, contact your market data provider or go to www.mysmartrend.com SmarTrend
   is a registered trademark of Comtex News Network, Inc. Copyright � 2004-2008 Comtex News Network, Inc. All rights reserved.